Individual skill
detecting-t1548-abuse-elevation-control-mechanism
Detect abuse of elevation control mechanisms including UAC bypass, sudo exploitation, and setuid/setgid manipulation by monitoring registry modifications, process elevation flags, and unusual parent-child process relationships.
internal/tools/skills/data/threat-hunting/detecting-t1548-abuse-elevation-control-mechanism/SKILL.md
Source commit d42f381ad34843e71a42658e5c57290c713e85af
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- Observed behavior
- Network or broad shell
- Last checked
- Nov 9, 2026
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- 1,329
- Repository last updated
- Nov 9, 2026
- License
- Apache-2.0
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- cybersecurity Repository topic
- security Repository topic
- bug-bounty Repository topic
- automation Repository topic
- autonomous-pentesting Repository topic
- ai-agent Repository topic
- ai-security Repository topic
- ethical-hacking Repository topic
- golang Repository topic
- penetration-testing Repository topic
- threat-hunting Declared skill tag
- uac-bypass Declared skill tag
- privilege-escalation Declared skill tag
- mitre-t1548 Declared skill tag
- elevation-control Declared skill tag
- windows-security Declared skill tag
- security Derived category
- operations Derived category
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# Detecting T1548 Abuse Elevation Control Mechanism
## When to Use
- When hunting for privilege escalation via UAC bypass in Windows environments
- After threat intelligence indicates use of UAC bypass exploits by active threat groups
- When investigating how attackers achieved administrative access without triggering UAC prompts
- During security assessments to validate UAC bypass detection coverage
- When monitoring for setuid/setgid abuse on Linux systems
## Detection Gaps & Validation
- **No UAC consent event for fileless bypasses:** fodhelper/computerdefaults/sdclt/eventvwr produce no 4673/4674 — detection hinges on Sysmon EID 12/13 registry-set to `HKCU\Software\Classes\{ms-settings|mscfile|exefile}\shell\open\command` followed by EID 1 where the auto-elevate binary spawns cmd/powershell at High integrity. If registry auditing (EID 12/13) is missing from the Sysmon config, the bypass is silent.
- **Fileless / curver variants:** some bypasses use an empty `DelegateExecute` value or `CurVer` redirection that string-match rules on `ms-settings` miss; CMSTP (`/s /ni` + malicious INF) leaves an INF on disk, not a registry write.